Samoa: vegan suafa’i

For our first visit to Polynesia, we make a stop in Samoa to enjoy a Samoan vegan dessert: suafa’i. This banana and coconut soup or pudding gets a very special texture from tapioca pearls. Read on to learn a bit about Samoan cuisine or jump straight to the recipe.

Samoan cuisine

Samoa is an island nation East of Fiji and Australia. (Very far east, some 4000 km from Australia. For reference 4000 km is the distance between northern Norway and the Gibraltar strait, further than the distance from the UK to Newfoundland). Originally settled some 3500 years ago by the Lapita people, a people who settled large parts of Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia.

Traditional Samoan cuisine is based on Polynesian staple ingredients such as coconut, tropical fruits like and breadfruit along with tubers like cassava and taro ​[1], [2]​. Being an island nation, fish and other seafood are common in many dishes, as are different land animals, especially chicken. Colonial influences from Germany and New Zealand play a role to some extent in modern Samoan cuisine, as does Chinese immigrants, originally arriving as imported labour during the colonial era ​[3]​.

Samoan dishes

Among the many unique dishes enjoyed on Samoa today you find Samoa’s national dish panipopo ​[4], [5]​. This sweet bun is baked in a coconut milk sauce and served in bowls along with more of the sweet sauce. Coconut milk can also be baked with onion in taro leaves to create palusami, sometimes served with spam. Chinese inspired fried noodles sapasui (chop suey) are common as is kale moa, a coconut based chicken curry. The Samoan version of ceviche is called oka i’a and is made with raw tuna marinated in lemon juice and coconut milk, along with chili and herbs like parsley and cilantro.

Aside from the national dish panipopo, there is a large number of Samoan desserts. Just like on the Solomon Islands and many other pacific islands, you can find a dish that goes by the name poi. While Solomon Island and Hawaiian poi is fermented, mashed taro roots, Samoan poi is quite different. In Samoa, poi is a dessert made by mashing bananas and mixing them with coconut milk, lemon zest, vanilla and sugar ​[4], [6]​.

Suafa’i – a Samoan vegan dessert

For this blog post, I chose to try one of the many Samoan desserts. Suafa’i is a Samoan banana soup or tapioca pudding, made by simmering tapioca pearls in a coconut and banana “soup” ​[7]–[10]​. The soup or pudding (depending on how liquid-y it is) is simple to make yet develops complex flavours from cooking the bananas for 20 minutes. This Samoan vegan dessert can be eaten warm or cold, as a dessert or as a breakfast dish.

Tapioca pearls

Tapioca is a starch rich flour made from cassava roots ​​[11]​​. As we saw in our visit to Jamaica where we made bammies and ackee, cassava is poisonous if not cooked. For tapioca starch, the starch is extracted from the cassava by grating the roots and washing in water. Finally, the starch is extracted from the water and is no longer poisonous. Tapioca pearls are simply pearls made from tapioca starch and water which are mixed and shaped into balls and dried.

Tapioca pearls are often used in Southeast and East Asian desserts, and tapioca pudding has spread around the British Commonwealth, where the pearls are boiled in milk to create a pudding. In the UK, the dish is not overly popular and has been voted worst school dinner and is nicknamed ‘frog spawn’, ‘fish eyes’ and ‘eye ball pudding’ ​​[12], [13]​. During my research on tapioca pearls, I came across Thai ​[14]​, Chinese ​[15]​, British ​[13], [16]​, Canadian Mennonite ​[17]​, American (US), and Amish recipes alike. The pudding is usually made by simmering tapioca pearls in some form of milk, with additional ingredients based on region.

Aside from the loved/hated tapioca pudding, tapioca pearls are on a tour across the world in the form of Taiwanese bubble tea. This cold tea with milk or fruit juice has spread across the world in the past 20 years and is very popular in a lot of different regions ​[18]​. In addition, tapioca pearls are finding their way into high end restaurants ​[16]​. In some parts of the world, tapioca pearls are also used in savory dishes and can be found in Indian dishes like sabudana kichdi (a tapioca pearl stirfry) ​[19]​. In Brazil, tapioca pearls are cooked in spiced wine as a dessert ​[20]​.

Conclusion

The Samoan vegan dessert suafa’i is the Polynesian version of tapioca pudding, a dish which seems to have a mixed reputation with most people either loving or hating it. Simmering bananas and coconut milk for so long helped develop a lot of flavour and the final dish is quite interesting. But I can see why the dish is so divisive: the texture is very special and people who describe it as lumpy and slimy are not wrong. But slimy and lumpy is not necessarily a bad thing, depends on what you like. Since the dish is so simple to make, I think you should give it a go. Maybe you will find that it is the best thing that has happened to you.

Vegan suafa’i recipe

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Suafa’i

This banana and coconut pudding with tapioca pearls is a Samoan classic. Eaten hot or cold any time of day, it is a great and simple treat.

Course Breakfast, Dessert

Cuisine Polynesian, Samoan

Keyword banana, coconut, tapioca

Prep Time 3 minutes minutes

Cook Time 40 minutes minutes

Ingredients

• 2 bananas, very ripe
• 100 mL coconut milk
• 2 tbsp tapioca pearls I used small ones

Instructions

• Mash the bananas with a fork.
• Place bananas in a pot and cover with water. Don't use too much water; it is easier to add more than to remove.
• Bring to a boil and let simmer 10-20 minutes.
• Add tapioca pearls and coconut cream (without discarding the water).
• Continue to simmer until the tapioca pearls are completely translucent, around 20 min.
• Serve hot or cold.

References